Cheesy Quintessence

After letting the amazing code for the new IMGrammarBot sit on my hard drive inactive for months and months, I’ve finally released it today. Go get it! It does amazing new things, such as:

• Connects to TOC2
• Runs multiple bots from one script
• Uses templates to colorize messages
• Has an amazing new configuration file and similar language files
• “Types” messages, delaying their sending

Despite how pitiful I may currently be at writing Python, I’ve devised what is probably the best script ever written to integrate X-Chat with a media player. My Quintessential Remote script for X-Chat uses AMIP (Advanced mIRC Integration Plugin) to allow for automated reporting (to specific channels) of what’s the player is currently doing. There are plenty of other neat features, including…

• Public player control (in specific channels)
• Public request for report (can be toggled)
• A public command ignore list
• An age prerequisite for automatic reporting of media player status

This might seem like a fairly simple concept, but there is a lot to take into consideration when allowing for automatic reports requested reports. For example, an automatic report might annoyingly repeat a requested report just seconds after the fact; my script prevents this by creating an exemption stack per network/channel/song so that the automatic report can skip songs that have already been reported.

While this script is tailored for Quintessential Player, making it work with other media players, while it can’t likely be done by the configuration alone, shouldn’t be hard. All you need is a file containing the media player’s current status, and command line flags to control the player.

Today I got weather.com’s XML feed set up to run on this site. With a delay of up to 30 minutes, you’ll get to see my current weather conditions in the upper right hand corner of the page. I also made a little weather page for extended weather data. I can display more information than I have chosen to, so perhaps I will do that at a later time.

I also greatly improved WildBillBot’s weather command. Now, instead of simply displaying an error when multiple locations for a query are found (e.g. “Woonsocket”), it displays a list. This weather function will work worldwide. Aren’t I just a weather geek?

And while I’m writing about the weather, I think I need a home in Timbuktu. It was 102°F there when I checked their weather (late afternoon/early evening their time) today. I’ll check the weather for Timbuktu over the day tomorrow and post how hot it gets.

Well, this is my new blog. Hopefully this blog will be less boring than the old one, which I closed several months ago because it was too boring for my sanity. This time, I am going to try to post more interesting things. Perhaps people will actually want to read it this time around.

I am particularly proud of how this design came out. This is the first CSS layout I’ve made that actually works in Microsoft’s Internet Exploder (gasp). I hope people like it. If you have any suggestions, be sure to add comments.

Don’t forget to check out all of the pages I’ve put up on the left. I’ll be adding more scripts and stuff later, so check back often!